Dental Services: Children

No assessment has been made on waiting times for children’s National Health Service dental appointments.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the West Dorset constituency, this is the NHS Dorset ICB.

In the NHS Dorset ICB, 5,720, or 8%, more NHS dental treatments were delivered to children in April to October 2025 than the same period before the election. Nationally, 1.8 million more NHS dental treatments were delivered across the same time period. Half of these additional treatments were delivered to children.

The 10-Year Health Plan confirms that child dental health is a priority, and we are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. In the meantime, we are introducing changes to dental access that will benefit children.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the most pressing issues that dentists and dental teams have been experiencing, put patients with greatest need first, and incentivise urgent care and complex treatments. We have also introduced a new course of treatment for fluoride varnish for children to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses in between regular check-ups. We have also increased remuneration for dentists for fissure sealants, an effective intervention for children aged seven years to 18 years old, to support increased use for primary prevention purposes.

Reducing rates of tooth decay is central to our commitment to help children to live healthier lives. Since 2025, we have invested £21.5 million to implement the national supervised toothbrushing programme for three- to five-year-olds, to reach up to 600,000 children in the most deprived areas of England.

We are committed to reforming the dental contract by the end of this Parliament.